The question comes up at every event or pitch – “how will our blog get noticed among the throngs of millions?” Good question.
There are millions of corporate web sites. However, this surely hasn’t stopped companies from investing in new ones every day. So I don’t see why this should inhibit blogging. Still, in this era of marketing ROI, I recognize that this is a key hurdle to overcome before someone green-lights a budget.
The short answer is, your blog won’t get noticed unless you nurture it. This means – in an ideal situation – weekly or even daily someone is pumping the weblog with fresh compelling content. But any old content won’t do. Corporations interested in blogging need to add value to people’s lives. That’s the biggest key to a successful corporate blog that keeps people coming back.
So what do I mean by add value? I mean give us a reason to read your blog. Give us something we can’t find anywhere else. Provide information that your customers, partners and prospects care about, not necessarily what you care about. Be a resource and a connector.
This goes against the grain of how some organizations think. They want to talk about their widgets and how great they are. This is ok, provided that the content adds value. However, my advice is to surround the content that’s about yourself with other helpful information on high interest topics that relate to your product. Ideally, if you’ve done your homework, you will contribute to ongoing conversations that are already taking place around these subject matters. Otherwise, the blog will fall flat. That’s the secret sauce to a good blog.
Steve Rubel is a PR strategist with nearly 16 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience. He currently serves as a Senior Vice President with Edelman, the largest independent global PR firm.
He authors the Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.
